Family trip aka bro's birthday trip

I bet this is the best birthday present ever. Waking up to find your self arriving in an  overseas country, literally, since they arrived in the early morning. Lucky little brother! A crazy week ahead. We were in 3 states in Australia within 1 week- Melbourne, Tasmania, and Sydney.

He had two birthday celebrations on his 19th birthday. Once at Koko Black with dad, boyf and I. Brownie as birthday cake, considering we will be away two days later. But quite special right, love the ambience too. We were lucky as we were sited upstairs, having more privacy away from passers-by. We has the platter to share as we were quite full, but it ensure my bro and dad could try most of the desserts offered by Koko Black. Also, the ice chocolate is a must for chocolate lover. The waitress is kind enough to help me up with surprising my bro, appreciate her effort!

Second celebration at home with Elaine and Yiann, with humongous macaroons from LuxBite. These two are rasperry flavoured and chocolatey. Apart from these, they have some really special flavours for their macaroons, such as kaya, pandan, kopiko.

One of the exciting parts of the trip to me is travelling to Tasmania. Haven't been there before and have always heard good comments about it. Well, it is really picturesque, but really, nothing much apart from the scenery. More suitable if you are a total scenery person, and it's best to do road trip throughout Tasmania, eg driving from Hobart to surroundings then to Launceston. But of course, like anyone would've expected, the seafood is seriously irresistible.

Had our brunch on the first day at Ginger Brown cafe located right out of the CBD. Their baked eggs is highly recommended in UrbanSpoon. Gave it a go and man it is really awesome. The base is a mixture of mashed white cauliflower and potato with cheese, and also a big slice of salmon in it. Something really different from baked eggs I usually had which normally got paired up with tomatoes flavour. No doubt for the freshness of salmon!

One of the best seafood dinner I've had is this one, at Drunken Admiral. The freshness! I'm drooling over it again as I'm typing. Initially we ordered two mains to share, which are sizzling platter consisting skewers of fish, scallops and prawns with bowl of chips and salmon fillet with tomatoes, anchovies and potatoes. However, we added the special of the day in the end, the crayfish, which just caught on the day itself. Damn everything super yummy! Plus, we get to have a bowl of salad from the salad bar with every main ordered.

We only had 2 days at Hobart, so we went on a day trip to Port Arthur, with stopping by Richmond with Adventure Island Tour.  The whole Port Arthur was a prison site with extremely low chance of escaping. In fact. Port Arthur was one of the prison with the most strict rules on discipline in Australia. There's even school and church to educate and change the prisoner to be a better man. However, the prisoners there were mostly not serious offender like a murderer, they were mostly convicted due to stealing. Fun fact, about 70% of the current residents in Tasmania are descendent of convicts.

Still insisting on tasting Tassie's seafood, we had fish and chip for our second dinner there. The fish basket at The Mures consists of the battered fish, crumbed fish, scallops, prawns, squids and chips. Cheap and very good value.

After having some fun in Melbourne and Tasmania, we flew over to Sydney. Apart from the signature architecture of Opera House and Harbour Bridge, we are more excited to enjoy the awesome meal offered by Hurricane's Grill.  We ordered a whole BBQ chicken on top of the must pork rib. Both were so so yummy. I have been going back for the ribs every single time I'm back to Sydney. It's heavenly and not to be missed. The pork ribs is the best, but I didn't like the beef ribs, the meat was just too hard.

Opted to enjoy some great scenery Blue Mountain got to offer, but it was really foggy that day, with some showers throughout the day. Luckily we could still captured Three Sisters or else it'll be such a waste. Plus the beautiful autumn scenery along the Leura Village. 

Not forgetting to stop by The Rocks, one of my favourite area in Sydney. Love how it still keeps its vintage charm despite being located just beside the hustle and bustle of Sydney CBD.

Lastly, had our last brunch at Lowenbrau. We ordered a platter to share amongst us, thinking that we could have a variety of choices to share, including sausages, chicken schnitzels and meat loafs. But we didn't like it. The sausages and the pork knuckle are still quite good but not others. It's better off to just order the pork knuckle by itself.

It was a great getaway, being away with my family as a plus point. It was a break of my everyday part time and an escape before facing the challenges ahead. And now, I gotta reflect, once again, of what is laying in front of me, and what I could do with it.